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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

#EDCMOOC sounds like SOLE to me

"What is the future of learning?" This question was posed recently by Sugata Mitra in the TED talk "Build a School in the Cloud." Sugata Mitra supposes "Could it be that we don't need to go to school at all? Could it

http://www.ted.com/pages/sole_challenge#download

be that at the point in time you need to know something you could find out in two minutes?"
I listened to this TED talk after completing the #EDCMOOC, "eLearning & Digital Cultures." During this experience it became clear to me the MOOCers direct their own learning. This is very similar to what Sugata Mitra is proposing.
He says "Learning is the product of educational self organization. If you allow the educational process to self organize, learning emerges. It's not about making learning happen it's about letting it happen." This last phrase caused me to remember how one of the EDCMOOC teachers referred to the MOOC. He called it "A Happening." The teachers in the MOOC truly did what Mitra is suggesting here. "The teacher sets the process in motion and then stands back and watches in awe as learning happens." His formula is broadband, collaboration and encouragement. This is exactly what I found in the MOOC Mitra refers to this as Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLE). If you are interested in taking part in his research project check out the SOLE Toolkit.